[Grammar] adjective clause

[philo2009]

"Who am" alone sounds horrible

But it is not alone!

I, who AM your friend,..
You, who ARE my friend,...
He, who IS my friend,
We, who ARE your friends,...
They, who ARE our friends,...

Nothing remotely horrible here - just standard linguistic agreements!

 

[philo2009]

Thank you fivejedjon and let me rephrase it—if I wanted to be formally correct, am is the right choice, but in colloquial English is would be acceptable and, maybe, more common? Thanks for yours, and anybody else's, input

No educated native speaker of English would ever accept *I who is....

 

[philo2009]

The great professor explains that in theory and historically, some

speakers in the past said: It is I who is your best friend.

The "is" IS correct -- in theory. That is:

It (who is your best friend)

is I.

With all due respect to the great professor, I should like to see one single example of this supposedly 'theoretically correct' construction!

English is an Indo-european language, and its sibling tongues are unanimous with regard to this type of sentence pattern:

FRENCH: C'est moi qui suis ton ami (Not: *est...)
GERMAN: Ich bin es, der (ich) dein Freund bin.... (Not: *...ist)
LATIN: Est ego, qui amicus tuus sum... (Not: *...est)

The number and person of the relative pronoun in such cleft constructions is - and in good usage, I would submit, always has been - determined by that of the pronoun complementing the main clause subject (it). The latter being essentially an empty grammatical device - little more than 'syntactic padding' - we would, in any case, hardly expect it to be able to stand in the role of antecedent.

If anyone has ever seen fit to utter a sentence such as

*It is I who is...

it was doubtless the result of a misguided hypercorrection!

 

[5jj]

English is an Indo-european language, and its sibling tongues are unanimous with regard to this type of sentence pattern:

No one could argue against 'it is I am who am' being the preferred version' - googlebooks gives 8,963 examples of this construction, with only 289 for 'It is I who is'. However, what happens in other Indo-European languages is irrelevant to what happens in Modern English.

If anyone has ever seen fit to utter a sentence such as

*It is I who is...

it was doubtless the result of a misguided hypercorrection!

You have used this non-argument before. It is very convenient to say that if evidence is found that an 'educated' speaker has used a construction that you consider that 'educated speakers' would not use, it is a mistake or misguided hypercorrection. I would not claim that it must be be generally acceptable because it has been said/written; however, there is no evidence that these speakers have hypercorrected. For all we know, they might argue forecefully that it is correct.

 

[TheParser]

With all due respect to the great professor, I should like to see one single example of this supposedly 'theoretically correct' construction!

NOT A TEACHER


(1) Thank you for your kind note. Any time that I get a chance to

discuss Professor Curme, I am overjoyed.

(2) On page 187 in the second volume of his masterpiece A Grammar of

the English Language, he cities historical examples -- as he always

does -- to back up his statements.

(a) I hope that copyright laws allow me to quote all these words from

his 1931 masterpiece:


Instead of "I am not marvelous. You are marvelous" we may say:

"It's not I that am (instead of the correct is) marvelous. It's

you that are (instead of the correct is) marvelous. ... The correct

third person occurs sometimes: "It is not I that does it" (Cameron

Mackenzie, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, CH. III). ... " 'Tisn't I that wants to

spoil your home " (Galworthy, quoted from Jespersen's Modern English

Grammar, III, 90, where there are other examples). The correct

third person was employed by Chaucer, and has long been in limited

use: "It am I that loveth so hote (hotly) Emelye the brighte" (The

Knightes Tale, 878).

(3) Thanks again for your note. Serious students (including

ordinary people like me) just have to have a copy of his

two-volume masterpiece. They will be constantly dipping into it --

not least for its wealth of quotations. A humble soul like me

could never understand Professor Chomsky in a million years.


Respectfully yours,


James

 

[Allen165]

With all due respect to the great professor, I should like to see one single example of this supposedly 'theoretically correct' construction!

English is an Indo-european language, and its sibling tongues are unanimous with regard to this type of sentence pattern:

FRENCH: C'est moi qui suis ton ami (Not: *est...)
GERMAN: Ich bin es, der (ich) dein Freund bin.... (Not: *...ist)
LATIN: Est ego, qui amicus tuus sum... (Not: *...est)

The number and person of the relative pronoun in such cleft constructions is - and in good usage, I would submit, always has been - determined by that of the pronoun complementing the main clause subject (it). The latter being essentially an empty grammatical device - little more than 'syntactic padding' - we would, in any case, hardly expect it to be able to stand in the role of antecedent.

If anyone has ever seen fit to utter a sentence such as

*It is I who is...

it was doubtless the result of a misguided hypercorrection!

NOT A TEACHER.

Your translations into French and German sounded wrong to me, but since I'm far from being a native speaker of those languages I decided to do some research.

Apparently, "c'est moi qui suis" is correct, not "c'est moi qui est." But the latter construction is quite common among native speakers of French, which is probably why it sounded right to me.

"Ich bin es, der dein Freund bin," on the other hand, is wrong and should read "Ich bin es, der dein Freund ist."

 

[philo2009]

]No one could argue that 'it is I am who am' is the preferred version' - ...that it is correct.

Thank you for your comments, but I have nothing to add to my previous posts.

 

[philo2009]

NOT A TEACHER.

"Ich bin es, der dein Freund bin," on the other hand, is wrong and should read "Ich bin es, der dein Freund ist."

Yes, I believe, on reflection, that I may have erred there. However, the pronoun + relative clause construction Ich, der (ich) dein Freund bin (and not ...ist), rendering I, who am your friend... is, I think, quite correct, and sufficient to underline the essential agreement principle that applies in all Indo-european languages in this type of construction.

 

[5jj]

Thank you for your comments, but I have nothing to add to my previous posts.

Sorry, my original words were unclear. I have changed them to "No one could argue against 'it is I am who am' being the preferred version'

 

[philo2009]

Sorry, my original words were unclear. I have changed them to "No one could argue against 'it is I am who am' being the preferred version'

Quite so! (No one with an adequate command of English, at any rate!)

Regarding the comparison with other languages, naturally such evidence can never be admitted as absolute proof of (un)grammaticality in English, and it was most remiss of me if, at any point, I inadvertently intimated otherwise. (However, I think it fair to say that it does at least serve as an interesting general indication as to the likelihood of correctness in this particular case.)

 

[philo2009]

(1) Thank you for your kind note...

James

James, you have fulfilled my request to the letter!

I must confess some surprise at the examples cited, but, despite the mention even of such illustrious names as Chaucer and Galsworthy, I find, from a philologist's perspective, the notion of so fundamental a departure in English from the standard Indo-european model just a little improbable...

Setting that matter, however, temporarily aside, I derive some measure of consolation at least from the fact that, concerning the more basic matter of intraphrasal agreement in I, who am (about which the question was originally posed), Professor Curme and I do not appear to be in disagreement!

 

[5jj]

Regarding the comparison with other languages, naturally such evidence can never be admitted as absolute proof of (un)grammaticality in English, and it was most remiss of me if, at any point, I inadvertently intimated otherwise. (However, I think it fair to say that it does at least serve as an interesting general indication as to the likelihood of correctness in this particular case.)

I don't agree, but I have no more chance of changing your mind than you have of changing mine, so I will say no more on that point.

 

[philo2009]

I don't agree, but I have no more chance of changing your mind than you have of changing mine, so I will say no more on that point.

No doubt!